


The Man That I Was

by Winters_Red_Star



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Betrayal, Confusion, Gen, Hope, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:47:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3394070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winters_Red_Star/pseuds/Winters_Red_Star
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all know that Steve is looking for Bucky.  But what would happen if he found him in cryo freeze?  What would happen if Bucky's programing was to strong to override completely?  Is he going to go back to the people that took his life away from him and made him their weapon?  Or will Steve be able to reach through to him, bringing him back into a world that could use his help in defending it from threats?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man That I Was

“Steve, its very important that you remain calm right now.” Natasha said hesitantly, stepping towards Steve, reaching out to touch is ridged arm.  “Steve?” But her words fall on deaf ears. His face was in a blank state of rage, his clear blue eyes clouded with anger as they stared ahead of him, his jaw clenched tightly.

            Steve wouldn’t move, wouldn’t budge, he couldn’t, not when Bucky was right in front of him, frozen in a small chamber like a lab rat. He looked so peaceful, through the small circular window that had a layer of frost on the other side of it, his eyes were closed, and his face completely lax, as his head was angled upwards while a few stray strands of his dark hair fell across his features. But what really pissed Steve off, was seeing his metal arm raised up to the window, frost and ice hanging off of it, as he begged to come out.

            “So this is what he is to them.” Steve said so coldly through gritted teeth, it even made Natasha flinch, “A tool to be put in storage when it isn’t needed.” The more Steve spoke the more he clenched at the metal rail on the side of the containment unit, making it buckle under his strength.

            “I want him out of that unit right now.” Steve said, finally looking away from Bucky to look Natasha in the eye.  When he did, she almost couldn’t bear the weight of all his emotions; regret, anger, hope, sadness...  But as he went to force the door open, Natasha moved forward to stop him before he did something he would regret.

            “Steve,” Natasha silenced his protests before he could say them, “If you force him out of cryo freeze, he will die.”  That got Steve’s attention, and he backed a step away from the chamber, glancing sorrowfully at Bucky.  “We have other things to take care of.”  She reminded him, looking over towards the HYDRA agents that they had tied up when they came in the base.  There hadn’t been that many, since the Winter Soldier was back on ice, he wasn’t a threat that needed to be monitored by a strike team, and there was really only need for a few doctors and a couple agents to guard them.  That proved to be a good distraction for Steve, because his mood darkened once again and he marched over to where the agents were tied up, and began knocking them out, one by one, with a harder punch than he would usually use.  While Steve was occupied with that, Natasha went to the computers, and downloaded any information she could from the servers, the information they could get on the Winter Soldier would be useful in understanding just what has been happening to his for the past 70 years, as well as possible locations on other HYDRA bases’.

            When she turned back towards the chamber, Steve was standing there again, looking into the small window at the Winter Soldier.  “What are we going to do Natasha, what can we do?” He sounded so small, so _vulnerable_ , like a soft wind could knock him down.  Looking over the small chamber, it wasn’t any bigger than it needed to be, big enough to contain the Winter Soldier, and a little more space to hold the mechanics that actually kept him in cryo freeze, Natasha got an idea.

            “Steve, the chamber has its own power unit.” Natasha said, but glancing at Steve’s face, she got the message that he had no idea what that meant, “Meaning that it could function on its own if we removed it from the wall.” That he understood, and without a moment’s hesitation, Steve was smashing away at the bolts holding the chamber in the wall.  Natasha brought over a hand truck and let Steve do all the heavy lifting of putting the chamber onto the hand truck and wheeling him out the back door.  Since they needed a larger car to fit the chamber, Natasha hotwired a van that was parked across the street and drove it over to Steve, and once the chamber was in the back and Steve in the passenger seat, Natasha drove off before more HYDRA agents could swarm the building.

xxx

            “Where are we going Natasha?” Steve asked, his voice and face a mixture of emotion; worry, anger, guilt...

            “There’s only one person that could help us and you know it.” Natasha said, looking over at Steve like it should have been obvious.

            Steve tried not to roll his eyes, but he couldn’t help but sigh. “I know.  I just...I just wish that we didn’t have to go to _him_.”  Natasha let a small smile come to her lips, it was funny the rivalry Steve had with Stark, but Tony could be counted on in tough situations.  But Natasha was sure that he was going to give Steve hell for this, and she wasn’t sure if she was looking forward to Tony’s snarky comments or not. The rest of the drive was silent, Steve was to lost in thought about the Winter Soldier, Bucky, to talk, and Natasha had her own plans to make, her own memories to deal with.

xxx

            When they finally reached Stark Tower it was around midnight. Natasha drove the van into his garage, thanks to JARVIS letting them in.  Turning the van off, she and Steve got out to get the chamber out of the back. The van seemed out of place around all of Tony’s cars.

            “JARVIS, tell Tony that were here and need help.” Natasha told the AI.

            “I have already alerted Mr. Stark to your presence, and he has asked me to tell you to meat him up in his lab.” JARVIS told Natasha, causing her to huff in annoyance at Tony, why can’t he just come down here himself and help us?

            Looking over at Steve Natasha asked, “You think you can manage?”

            “Of coarse I can.” Was Steve’s flat response as he put the chamber onto the hand truck that they brought along with them and began wheeling it towards Natasha, “Just lead the way.”  And so they headed to the elevator, and headed up to Tony’s lab in silence.

xxx

            When they got off the elevator at Tony’s lab, they weren’t surprised to hear his loud music and the pounding and grinding of metal in the messy lab. When Natasha rounded the corner into his view, Tony had a smile on his face.

            “Natasha, how good to...”  But when he saw Steve and the chamber his smile only grew as he assumed he had a new toy to play with.  That is, until, he saw there was a man inside the chamber.

            “Steve, Steve why is there a body in there?  Steve who is that?  Steve is he dead?  Did you bring a dead body in my lab!?”  Tony started to ask franticly.

            Steve only held up his hand to put an end to Tony’s bumbling, “Come and take a closer look, I’m sure that you’ve been keeping up with the news?” Steve asked, as he set the chamber leaning against the wall.

            Tony was still worried about who was in the chamber, but he trusted Steve, so he went to take a closer look.

            “Now Steve, I’m never one for responsibility, but don’t you think that you might want to turn this guy in.  Don’t you think it’s a bit foolish to keep a guy like this around, even if he’s, frozen.” Tony asked.  Just like Steve ad asked, he had been keeping up with the news, and while there were no good close ups, and no shots of his face, there was always that metal arm that gave him away.  He knew the Winter Soldier when he saw him.

            “That’s out of the question Tony, I brought him here so that you could get him out of this.” Steve told him, gesturing to the chamber. “Tony, this is... well this is Bucky...my best friend.”  Steve said quietly, more to himself than to Tony, but still loud enough for him to hear. Tony was taken aback, how was this his best friend, how was this...this monster the once noble James Buchanan Barnes that history talks of so fondly?

            “Steve, whoever he was back then, I don’t think that’s who he is now-“

            “I don’t care what you think Tony!” Steve shouted, interrupting him, then sighing, trying to reign in his anger, he continued, “HYDRA did his to him, and I want the chance to undo it, so please, will you get him out of this thing, Natasha said that if I forced him out it would kill him.”

            “Well I don’t know about kill him, from what I’ve researched on him from the files that were leaked,” Tony glanced over at Natasha, “It looks like he’s had some alterations to his genetic makeup that allows him to heal at a much faster rate, like you, but it would defiantly damage him, so it would be in his best interest for me to figure out how to properly unlock and thaw him out.” Tony rambled, while looking over the chamber.

            “Will you do it?” Steve asked, he was showing his vulnerability slightly, looking like a lost puppy, to which Tony sighed.

            “Can you promise that he won’t try to kill me, and that you can control him?” Tony asked hopefully.

            “No, I can’t” Steve told him, wishing that he could lie this once and say yes, just so Tony wouldn’t have any reason to say no.

            “Alrighty then!” Tony said, with a clap of his hands, sounding more cheerful than before, confusing both Steve and Natasha, Lets get started!”

            Steve’s relief and happiness at the fact that Tony had agreed to help was palpable, his face lit up like a christmas tree, and his eyes began gleaming like the light of fifty stars.  “Tony thank you so much! I’ll make sure he doesn’t kill you, you have my word!”  It sounded better in Steve’s head, but he was to happy to think too much about it.

            “Don’t thank me I haven’t even done anything yet.”

xxx

            Steve didn’t once leave the lab.  The entire time that Tony was working on running through equations and ways of carefully unlocking the chamber, Steve watched over his shoulder like a worried mother.  Tony found it to be rather annoying, but he knew better than to bring it up to Steve, because he knew that he would back off for a grand total of five minutes before hovering again, and Tony really didn’t feel like going through the effort of it. Natasha stayed in the lab as well, but she at least kept her distance, watching him from one of the chairs by his workbench, switching from either watching him work of looking on her phone at something.

            Tony worked through the rest of the night, or morning rather, and worked without taking a break, because he knew Steve would keep bothering him about it until he finished.

            It wasn’t until around 4 in the morning that Tony cracked it. He had already figured out how he would open the locks hours ago, but he had to wait for JARVIS to run through millions of possible equations to begin the defrosting process. But that wasn’t it, after JARVIS had finished finding the equation, Tony had held off on letting Steve in on that little secret for a little while so he could just research a bit more into the files that Natasha had brought back with them.  He’d been going over them the whole while JARVIS was finding the code, but once he started, he had to go a bit further before he felt comfortable enough to begin thawing the Winter Soldier.

            The files contained information on past experiences the HYDRA scientists had with waking him from cryo freeze, and they varied quit a bit. Most of the time, he was catatonic, letting the scientists drag him out of the chamber and onto a lab table for many injections of many different kinds of chemicals. They would keep him strapped down, however, because when he eventually snapped out of it, he would thrash against the restraints until he would calm down, or was given a sedative. But sometimes, he would fight, he would forgo the catatonic state and just fall into a mad rage and start swinging wild punches.  It was these times that he was beaten by the agents that were present with the scientists, beaten down and then shocked with a taser, and Tony knew that taser had a much higher voltage than any normal human could survive.

            But he couldn’t keep stalling, so eventually he announced that he had the equation, and that he could open the chamber.  Steve was excited, incredibly so, Natasha came over as well, interested enough to want a closer look as Tony entered the equation into the chamber door.

            The three of them were silent, staring at the red light that popped up after the equation was entered.  It was a guessing game as to what would happen, really, not one of them had experienced something like this before.  But when the red light came on, mechanical arms started to move inside the chamber, injecting him with some sort of serum, probably to begin the thawing process. It was slower than Tony would have thought it be, he expected it to be done with in a matter of minutes, but it seemed to take about ten minutes before it was clear that the Winter Soldier was coming back to life.  There was a release of gas in the chamber onto his face, and then the red light on the door turned green, and the lock on the door clicked, and Tony grabbed his tool and opened the door all the way.

xxx

            The three of them stood there in stunned silence.  There stood the world’s deadliest assassin, and all they could feel at that moment was pity for him.  He didn’t have a shirt on, allowing them to see the many scars that ran across his torso, some deeper than others, some stretching from his right shoulder across his chest to his left abdomen, other smaller scars just littering his body. But what stood out the most was his arm. Through the small window on the chamber door they saw some of the damage to his body from it, but that was just a glimpse.  The metal limb was fused with his skin, leaving a raw looking scar all the way around his arm.

            The three of them waited for a few minutes, slowly seeing the color return to his skin and the extremely shallow breaths that he took, making it look like he wasn’t breathing at all started to deepen.  And he opened his eyes.

xxx

            It was so cold.  He hated the thawing process that he always had to go through when they needed him again. They didn’t know or care, but he woke up sooner than they knew, and he felt the biting cold inside of the small chamber that they froze him in.  But when he could finally open his eyes, he usually forgot all of the hatred that he felt, and he spent however long he needed to remember where he was and, more importantly, who he was.

            _Where am I?  Who are these people?  Who am I?_ These questions floated around his head every time he woke up from cryo.  _These people, do I know them?_ He was looking through half closed eyes, lacking the immediate strength to open them any further. He was looking at three strainers, they all looked familiar, but he couldn’t remember why.

            _The woman with straight shoulder length red hair_ , _I know her._ He saw flashes of her running away from...him.  _He stopped me,_ he was looking at Steve now, sparks of anger now present in his eyes, _who is he, why is he so familiar to me!?_   _And him, I know I don’t Know him, but why is he so familiar!?_ He was looking at Tony now, flashes from another assignment racing through his mind, a burning car, a mans dead body, but why?

            He was lost in his mind again, without realizing it, but there were just so many damn things to sort through.  He only snapped out of his haze when one of them spoke, the one that had stopped him from killing the woman.

            “Bucky?” he said, hope filled in his voce.  He stopped, this man kept calling him Bucky, but why? He wasn’t Bucky, was he? No, it wasn’t possible, he had no name.  He was a ghost.

            “Who the hell’s Bucky?”  he said, his voice hoarse and cracking from the lack of use.  He was looking him dead in the eye now, having been awake long enough to regain his strength, and he saw all the hope drain from his face.

xxx

Steve’s hears was shattered.  When he saw Bucky looking at them, looking at him, he thought, that just maybe, things would be okay.  But when were they ever.  When he said his name, he had such a blank look on his face that Steve thought he wasn’t going to get an answer.  He could work with that, help Bucky remember who he was, is.  But the answer he got, he couldn’t even understand.

            Bucky was speaking Russian.  Russian was his first choice in language, and that meant that he was currently the Winter Soldier, and Steve could do nothing for him at the moment. Hell, he couldn’t even understand him.

            When Steve looked at Natasha for a translation, she just shook her head.

            “You don’t want to know Steve, you won’t like it.” She said softly, she understood how hard this was for him, and she wasn’t about to let her feelings get caught up in the mix.

            “No Natasha, I really do want to know.”  Steve’s voice was stern, his eyes filed with determination, but also a bit of coldness.

            “He asked who the hell is Bucky.” Natasha told him.  Steve looked back up at Bucky, hurt in his eyes.

            “Steve, don’t you think we should get him out of there?” Tony asked hesitantly, he really didn’t want to push either of them to much.

            “Yes, we should get Bucky out, get him a shirt, a change of pants.” Steve said, offering Bucky his hand to help im out of the chamber.  But he didn’t take it, he just looked at his hand, as if expecting it to be a test. It was Natasha who got him out of the chamber.

            “Step out of there.” She ordered him in Russian, and like flipping a switch, he stepped out. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my first chapter and I really hope that you enjoyed it! Id love to hear what you thought, and I hope that you'll keep coming back to read more!


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